I spent my first three weeks in New York City using Airbnb and had pretty high expectations. The whole experience was more panic-inducing and stressful, and actually cost nearly as much as a half-decent hotel would have cost me.

Airbnb is a website where people can either rent or rent out apartment rooms each night making a few extra bucks. It's supposed to have an advantage over typical hotels with either cheap or unique rooms.

But Airbnb still has a long way to go to streamline the process and make it worth saving the extra $20-30 each night for a hotel instead of an apartment.

When I arrived in New York, my plan was to work on day one, then check into the apartment I picked up on Airbnb. I messaged the owner of the place the day before I arrived to confirm it was available and booked it, and everything seemed good to go.

It didn't work out that way, though. My Airbnb reservation expired in the middle of the day. Reservations expire if the owners don't reply or verify them. For some reason the owner had a change of heart, and wasn't talking to me.

I had already forked over $534 for the week's reservation, which left me with just $700 to last for a while. And, I had no place to stay. I had to scramble to find a new place, and then I had to try and get my money back.

I found a place, thankfully, but getting my money took 2 days of frustrating phone calls and emails to my bank. Airbnb was of little help. It refunded me, but I couldn't use the money for five days because it was a pending charge. My parents called me in a panic when they heard I was running low on cash and I tried to spend as little as possible.

It really wasn't the best way to get started in a new city.

I will probably never use Airbnb again unless the service improves. Not when I could just use Craigslist and avoid all this drama.